Are You Sabotaging Your Own Life?

Sabotage Man not Superman!  lol!
This is my great-nephew Luke a few years ago at his birthday party.

With my last post I brought to you the principle of Measure for Measure.  This principle is simply taking your response in a given situation and applying that response to you if the situation applies to you.   In other words, if you are merciful, then mercy will be shown to you.  If you are harsh, then you will be shown harshness.  Jesus spoke of a parable relating to this very principle in Matthew 18:23-35.  In this parable a King has a servant who owes him a great deal of money, (10,000 Talents).  By today's estimations: 1 Talent = 6,000 denarii, 1 denarii = a day's wage (approx $50); therefore 10,000 talents = approx $3,000,000,000  ($3 billion and that's a low estimate since $50 a day is only $6.25 per hour!)

Anyway, this guy owes the King a whole lot of money and the King decides it is time for him to repay.  Only problem is he can't, because he doesn't have it.  So what does the guy do?  He begs and pleads for his life!  The King is going to throw the whole family in jail, because the loan can't be repaid, but the guy begs for mercy and guess what?  The King has mercy!  The King forgives the guy of the loan and lets him go!

This guy should be all thankful and gracious right?  So what does he do?  He finds a guy who owes him about 100 denarii ($5,000) and forgives him!  NOT!!!  He shakes this guy for every penny!  The poor guy also begs and pleads and asks for mercy in order to have more time to pay back the money, but the first guy gives him NO MERCY!  He even goes so far as to throw this man AND his whole family into jail for the loan.  Why the nerve of that guy!!!

There is only one problem here.  Word of what he has done gets back to the King and the King sends him a summons!  Then he gets the lecture....

"You wicked servant!  I forgave you all that debt just because you begged me to do it.  Shouldn't you have had pity on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?  And in anger his master turned him over to the jailers for punishment until he paid back everything he owed."

That's just like us, isn't it?  We are given forgiveness and mercy and then we turn right around and show everything but forgiveness and mercy to the next person.  My oh my!  We sabotage our own future much of the time.  We could have our cake and eat it too if we would just share more of it!  Sabotage!  I believe that word is grossly misunderstood and underrated in Christianity.  We speak of demons and the devil and how "he" sabotages our "walk" with Christ.  My oh my how we look in the wrong direction for answers.

It is only natural, I suppose for mankind to play the blame game.  It began in the garden in Genesis and it hasn't stopped since.  No one wants to see themselves as the one to blame for their lot in life.  Certainly I cannot be the reason I am in the shape I'm in?  If I can only blame someone else!  If I can only blame something else.  If I can only blame God, then I shall not have to bear the weary burden alone!  Have we not all been there?  Admitting guilt is like treason upon yourself, is it not?

But, there is no one else to blame.  It is each of us who must carry the weight of our guilt.  Let me show you what I am talking about.  Another great and mighty principle in Jewish thought is this:  Angels are not necessarily spirit beings with wings, but rather messengers that when given an assignment must carry that assignment out to completion and nothing can stop it.  Now with that being said, every word you speak is an assignment to an angel and whatever assignment an angel is given MUST be carried out to completion!

Does this make James 3:10 come to life for you?  Out of the mouth come both blessing and cursing?  Whew!  Who knew?  Did you?  Me neither!!!!  Oh my!!!! Shut my mouth!!!  You know, I think we can all figure out how this plays out in the measure for measure, but I want to take you to a place I bet you wouldn't even think to go with this one.

Do you realize that a great many of us sabotage our own lives by measuring out judgment on and speaking assignments onto......ourselves?  That's right.  We do that in two ways, by speaking things of others and speaking things of ourselves also.  Let me elaborate on those for you.

Speaking things about others:  when we speak judgments about others, remember those judgments are used against us.  I first heard of this a few years ago when our Church was studying a book called Thank God It's Monday; How to take God to work with you by Rick Heeren.  This book talked about how we pronounce curses upon people with the words we say.  For example, have you ever looked at someone, a young single woman with several children all by different fathers and made the statement, "She is about worthless."  If so, you have just pronounced a life of worthlessness upon her.  Mr. Heeren went on to say that if you walked or drove by that house every day and instead pronounced a blessing upon that woman you might be giving her a chance.  You will have to read the book to find out what happens in some of the cases he sights.  :)

If our words give directions to God's messengers and those messengers must carry out those directions until completion, well?  Remember, with the same judgment you use.........!  If you pronounce unforgiveness, then unforgiveness will be your judgment.  If you criticize, then people will be critical of you.  Do you see where this is going?   I will leave this point alone, I think you get this one.

What about how we sabotage ourselves with ourselves?  Perhaps we always speak highly of others and judge well of others.  Okay, check that one off our list, we are good to go!  Let me ask this question, do we put ourselves down?  Have we been told in life that we are a less than favorable person and told often enough we have believed that lie?  Do we think we are dumb, fat, lazy, stupid, crazy, never going to amount to much, worthless, slow, different, even perhaps (should I say it?) a slut, we'll never fit in, no one will love us or if we find someone who does they will be an outcast just like us?

We know how bad these lies hurt us so we vowed to never hurt others that way.  Measure for measure - we don't measure those words out to others, but yet...............we measure them out to ourselves and we sabotage our own lives.  We send messengers to ourselves to continue the hurt and destruction that may have been started long ago.  IT.......IS.......TIME.........TO.......END....THE.....CYCLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
STOP THOSE MESSENGERS FROM COMING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AND GET SOME NEW MESSENGERS COMING IN HALLELUJAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

God says you are a special treasure!  You are worth everything, so much he sent His Son, His one and only Son who willingly died to take on the curse of death for you!!!!  And He would do it all over again.  And you know what else.........He LOVES YOU!!!!!  You are not worthless!  He loves you and He created you, so you are not space junk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Whew! Are you ready for a new life if this describes you and in a way it describes all of us at one time or another, but for many it describes life everyday.  I have heard person after person describe heartbreaking stories of traumatic events in their life.  It occurred to me one day that I only hear one raindrop of the stories compared to all the raindrops in the world, but God not only hears all the raindrops, he also sees them too.  I have shed many tears over the stories I have heard, stories of abuse and neglect.  I cannot imagine how God must feel knowing that those He created treat each other so.

Friends, God is love and apart from him we cannot know true love.  May you find His love today.  I would consider it a gift to show you this love if you do not know Him.  May you find the peace that only He can bring!  Shalom - Peace, my friend!